The only thing that sets legal precedent is published appellate court case results. Since this didn't go to an appellate court (it sounds like it didn't go to any court), this isn't going to set any kind of legal precedent.
Perhaps you mean, "Hopefully, this will enlighten stupid fucking multinational corporations, whose board of directors thinks they are entitled to eternal perpetually increasing profits at the expense of others, that they can't fuck with this community."
Dude. I don't care what the formatting looks like. Others may disagree.
In fact, I'd rather have everything laid out in the simplest possible format. It gives documents that "nostalgic" feel that newer, fancy, glossy presentations using CSS don't quite have anymore. You know, that 1990's feel that web pages) had. It also makes it possible to print things out and have them look reasonable, where formatting them in some fancy shmancy way might screw up that aspect of the formatting.
Finally, the RTFMs aren't supposed to look fancy... Otherwise, they might be called RTMs, and that might be confused with RPMs. I can just see a whole slew of n00bie questions like: Linux is the suxx0rz because RTM isn't compatible with RPM!!!!!!!!11111
Nooooo.... We have enough problems answering people's questions about how to get X working in ten terminals at the same time, and how to make something bold in vi. (Speaking of vi, emacs sucks.)
There is no way that Ideaflood owns the patent on Subdomains. Remember, Al Gore invented the Internet. He owns all the patents on these technologies, and I know for a fact, from extremely reliable sources, that he did not transfer ownership of these patents to Ideaflood. I have bulletproof evidence: Two people, who claim not to know each other, both told me the same thing one day.
Apparently, some research has shown that the noise produced by supersonic aircraft can be drastically reduced by modifying the shape of the aircraft. I don't remember where I read it, but the big airplane manufacturers are spending enormous amounts of money to figure out how to do this.
MASA (the Mars Aeronautics and Space Administration) has confirmed that Earth in fact has been destroyed by scientific experiments.
Scientists at the National Ignition Facility were focusing 98,873 high intensity lasers on a particle of hydrogen in an effort to produce nuclear fusion. Over 700 quadrillion watts of energy were focused onto the particle.
MASA authorities report that nuclear fusion has, in fact, produced immensely more energy than it took to initiate the reaction--so much, in fact, that the entire planet has been destroyed, affecting the orbits of all the planets around the sun.
Currently, scientists at MASA fear that over the next several months, the environment on Mars may experience drastic changes....
I guess that's what you get for trying to play God.
Strange. First, human and computer error caused the entire power grid in that area of the world to go down for quite a few hours. Now, the 911 system had a similar (although much smaller, I suppose) event. Why are so many things of this nature happening in New York? Does it have anything to do with the city's density?
In any case, New York is the suxx0rz because city services don't work.
The first thing we should do is transport some seeds, soil, a lot of water, and a big tank of oxygen to Mars. You don't have to terraform the entire planet. Just send an unmanned machine that will build a garden about 5 feet by 5 feet square. Some grass, a few plants, that's all. Put them there, release a little bit of water on the plants each day, and a little bit of oxygen. See if they grow. If it works, send another one with some trees and stuff. If that works, send a big fleet containing an entire rainforest worth of stuff, and plant that, too. A little 5x5 patch of garden in the middle of the entire red planet won't harm any "evidence" that might be there.
Nucular power is a very bad idea. I mean, the friggen power plant could have an accident and take out the whole city. I'd feel much safer if they'd just make power from, like, sunlight or something. Yeah. This method works best at night, by the way, because the sun ain't there, and I think more power is needed at night than during the day. But I have a solution. All we'd have to do is put solar power stations all over the world, and from each time zone, run lots and lots of power lines to a timezone that's 12 hours off, or something like that. In other words, if it's daytime in, like, China or something, they'd make power and it would go over these power lines to, like, Brazil or something.
This would make all the nations of the world cooperate with each other, kind of like the story about the people sitting across from each other at a 2 meter wide table, with 2 meter long silverware, where they had to cooperate to feed the person across from them, because otherwise they couldn't eat with that kind of long silverware. Yes. This would definitely work. I can totally see Cuba supplying power to Egypt, and Iran supplying power to Mexico, etc.
Needless to say, it would also cut down on all kinds of pollution, especially since it takes more energy to produce a solar cell than that cell will ever produce in its useful life. And because producing all that wire will take even more energy, not to mention tons of money. And because there is energy loss as it travels over long lengths of power lines. Yes. This is a great idea, and we don't need no stinkin' nucular power.
What they should do is start retrofitting Boeing 747's with about eight of the engines from the X-43A. That would make intercity travel a bit more convenient.
Imagine... instead of driving 45 minutes from Los Angeles to Burbank, you could drive to the airport (30 minutes), wait to check in (20 minutes), go through security (25 minutes), wait at the gate (40 minutes), get on the plane (20 minutes), wait on the runway (20 minutes), take off, fly, and land in Burbank (about 10 seconds), get off the plane (20 minutes), wait at the baggage claim (25 minutes), and then rent a car (30 minutes) and drive to your destination (25 minutes). Which would take about 4 hours, 15 minutes, and 10 seconds. Yes, I think this would be a very efficient way to travel, and it would definitely cut down on freeway traffic.
And of course, figuring out how to make the 747 withstand this kind of acceleration and speed without, uh, damaging the aircraft would, uh, create lots of jobs and make the economy strong again. Yeah. Good deal.
I have an idea. Rapists and murderers should be set free, because their crimes aren't all that bad. But if you dare to have software on your computer that isn't approved by Microsoft, you will be put on death row. That is because it makes perfect sense. Copying some bits, death penalty. Murder 100 people and rape 100 more, no punishment. Yes, this makes perfect sense.
On the other hand, maybe huge corporations should start making money by innovation and marketing rather than lawsuits and lobbying for laws.
The G5 really is the fastest computer in the world. If you've used a 286 for the past ten years like I have, where GEM can barely run fast enough to appear responsive, then getting a G5 with dual processors and 10 gigs of RAM suddenly feels like going from an old bicycle to a Ferrari Testarossa. But that's just my take on it. Ooooooooh well.
I used to be the tyrant king of my own planet. It was a very advanced place, with all kinds of technologies that we don't even have here on Earth. Unfortunately, we got the Internet over there, too, and not six months later, the FUD spread and there was a revolt and I was kicked out of my palaces. Now, the place is in anarchy, and the anarchists had to dissolve their own government on a matter of principle. At least they are consistent in their beliefs. Ok, this post is garbage, and lucky for you, it's over now. Move along, folks, move along.
Casinos suck. As long as you're in there losing money, everything's ok. But the minute you earn something, they take you into some office and tell you that they exercise the right to refuse service to you, and then you're kicked out. Hey, that's real fair, isn't it?
In other news, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) today announced plans to release a new enterprise computing application, Microsoft FUD 2004 Enterprise Edition. By leveraging innovative technologies, content providers streamline compelling enterprise solutions.
"Our plan is to automatically generate FUD, to lower the TCO of our marketing department, while simultaneously increasing ROI," said Steve Ballmer in an interview. "Currently, we are spending just too many billions on marketing, and some of those funds could instead be diverted to SCO, er, I mean, to our legal defense department, thereby increasing shareholder returns."
The software is slated to appear in mid Q2 2004.
Six years later...
Microsoft stated that after years of delays, Microsoft FUD 2010 Constellation Edition will be released Real Soon Now (tm).
All properties are the property of their respective owners.
I just came up with the most extraordinary idea. Why not make up a programming language where { and } are used to denote the beginning and end of a block, respectively, and expressions are terminated with a semicolon. That would be a HUGE improvement over the current languages of today, which look a lot like:
LD1 I LDA BASE(0:2) STA *+1(0:2)
You get the picture... (The year is 1967 right now, isn't it?)
Since the article is released under this cool license, we should rip it to shreds and rewrite it, pointing to specific examples, empirical evidence, and good solid references. Some good words from businesses that successfully use OOo should be included as well.
Of course, since I'm coming up with this idea, I don't have to work hard to make it happen. Someone else do it for me. I'm busy typing up a report in vi.
You mentioned heat, which is interesting. The SR-71 can, in fact, take a LOT of heat. The plane's components are quite a bit smaller than they need to be in order to fit together. In fact, when it is fueled on the ground, gasoline actually spills out from the cracks. It is extremely dangerous to start the aircraft because the entire thing could explode. Once in the air, the plane begins to heat up, and the parts therefore expand and fit together properly. The plane then must be refueled (in the air), after which it can go to its destination. Also, it is able to go much faster than "they" will care to tell you.
Of course, you didn't hear it from me. (I saw it all on a documentary on the Discovery Channel or something like that.)
I think the federal government, in cooperation with Microsoft, should put together a database of all known information about every single person in the world, not limited to terror information. This database would be used by governments, as well as public and private companies, to deny services to persons for a variety of reasons. For example, you might find yourself unable to eat at any restaurant in the entire world because you are not a good tipper. Or you might be denied access to all gas stations because you were once seen smoking within 1000 feet of one. Or the government might suddenly burst into your home in the middle of the night, because you thought the president's neck tie was kind of funny in a speech he gave.
Yes, it looks like the world is becoming a better place every day.
Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis (CAIDA)
In other news, the Action League department of the Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis (AL CAIDA) today announced new threats of technological terrorist attacks. Among other things, they threatened to use illegally acquired funds to purchase the Microsoft Windows source code, insert viruses directly into the operating system, and release them to the unsuspecting world. The most frightening of their threats was to implement a technology called Windows Scripting Host, which would execute malicious code upon reception in an email inbox. Such a technology would allow viruses to spread faster than with earlier diskette-based methods.
Oh, wait... That's already been done for them. Back to the black hat drawing board with these computer crime organizations.
Obviously, since Microsoft is a multinational corporation with tons and tons of money, they should be constitutionally entitled to eternal perpetually increasing profits. To that end, the Supreme Court should rule that ALL products even remotely related to computers should IMMEDIATELY become the exclusive domain of Microsoft, and that the prices for these products should double every day. In other words, if there is a program called 'ls' on UNIX, then that program should be renamed to 'microsoft-ls' and Microsoft should receive a constantly doubling royalty fee each time that command is used.
And the Constitution should be amended to require EVERY individual to have a Microsoft Windows logo tattoed somewhere on their body, taking up at least 9 square inches of space, and that all newborns should have that logo tattoed on them upon birth. Yeah. That's a good idea.
The "agree to abide" thing is probably good. Perhaps there should be some law (or something similar) that those.mail domain name holders who do not abide by the rules are fined, and after so many fines, they are blocked from using a.mail TLD for a period of 100 years or something.
On the other hand, the $2000 a year fee isn't going to do jack. Those who send spam do so because it's really darn profitable. To them, the $2000 a year is peanuts. To a service provider who can barely make ends meet and wants to expand its quality of service and options for customers, $2000 may be the difference between breaking even and going bankrupt. That's kind of like trying to protect individual inventors working in their basement by making the patent fees $200,000 or something. That'll only serve to accomplish the opposite of the intended result.
The bottom line is this: Make it difficult for spammers, not for legitimate users. A certain standard should be devised that includes technical as well as contractual devices to make it extremely difficult for any spammer to last any time at all on the.mail TLD. And mail received from non-.mail TLDs could automatically go into a "bulk mail" folder, or would not be downloaded from the server at all, except for the "From:" address and perhaps a digital signature, so the user (or his filters) can decide what to do with that information. And maybe that needs to happen with ALL mail, not just non-.mail TLD mail.
The following does not represent fact. Only opinion. And it might not even be my opinion. I'm only listing here the things that sound reasonable that I've read elsewhere.
Microsoft has caused numerous quality products and the quality companies that produced them to disappear. They would either buy them out for peanuts or put them out of business with their illegal carnivorous business practices. Databases, word processors, development tools, web browsers, and media players are only a few of the examples that come to my mind. The existing products were far superior to those of Microsoft, in terms of reliability and efficiency, but Microsoft managed to hack together some crap to compete and used their marketing muscle to destroy the other guys. That's why people are used to the concepts of computers crashing, being bogged down by "crap" that somehow gets installed and runs in the background doing Lord knows what, etc. If there were no Microsoft, who knows where we'd be today, but I'm certain of one thing: At the very least, the software industry, consisting of many players of many different shapes and sizes, would produce rock-solid, efficient software, and by now, in 2004, nobody would accept the concept of a computer crashing and losing information.
Does this mean that Microsoft should not exist? No way! I really like one thing about them: Their marketing is awesome. I believe they should stop wasting their time and effort making software, and should turn into a computer systems marketing organization for software, hardware, and related products and services, all produced and served by others. They would earn some small percentage on the profits of sales for their marketing efforts. Increased competition would mean that lots of products and services would exist. Microsoft could be a directory connecting people, businesses, and governments to the proper places to obtain the results they need. Want standards? They could serve as the forum for designing and approving of standards, so that everything could eventually interoperate. No fixing dangling pointer bugs and the like. Only strategic thinking. And I think that if Microsoft were to do this, they would be ten times more influential, powerful, and profitable than by selling Windows XP at $200 a pop to people who hate Microsoft but feel compelled to buy their crap because there is no other choice, and who will move to something else as soon as it becomes available... But that's just the opinions of others that I've read elsewhere.
But the article on Unlimited Freedom offers a new perspective. The author examines 12 different applications which could benefit from access to Trusted Computing technology. And most of them are uncontroversial or would actually improve privacy and anonymity.
Trust3d Comput1ng iz th3 suxx0rz!!!!!!!111111111
You want trusted computing? Write everything in '1337-5p33k. Security through obscurity is the proven method to obtain 100% UNCRACKABLE security for today's enterprise applications.
Slashdot Mirror
The only thing that sets legal precedent is published appellate court case results. Since this didn't go to an appellate court (it sounds like it didn't go to any court), this isn't going to set any kind of legal precedent.
Perhaps you mean, "Hopefully, this will enlighten stupid fucking multinational corporations, whose board of directors thinks they are entitled to eternal perpetually increasing profits at the expense of others, that they can't fuck with this community."
In fact, I'd rather have everything laid out in the simplest possible format. It gives documents that "nostalgic" feel that newer, fancy, glossy presentations using CSS don't quite have anymore. You know, that 1990's feel that web pages) had. It also makes it possible to print things out and have them look reasonable, where formatting them in some fancy shmancy way might screw up that aspect of the formatting.
Finally, the RTFMs aren't supposed to look fancy... Otherwise, they might be called RTMs, and that might be confused with RPMs. I can just see a whole slew of n00bie questions like: Linux is the suxx0rz because RTM isn't compatible with RPM!!!!!!!!11111
Nooooo.... We have enough problems answering people's questions about how to get X working in ten terminals at the same time, and how to make something bold in vi. (Speaking of vi, emacs sucks.)
There is no way that Ideaflood owns the patent on Subdomains. Remember, Al Gore invented the Internet. He owns all the patents on these technologies, and I know for a fact, from extremely reliable sources, that he did not transfer ownership of these patents to Ideaflood. I have bulletproof evidence: Two people, who claim not to know each other, both told me the same thing one day.
Apparently, some research has shown that the noise produced by supersonic aircraft can be drastically reduced by modifying the shape of the aircraft. I don't remember where I read it, but the big airplane manufacturers are spending enormous amounts of money to figure out how to do this.
In any case, New York is the suxx0rz because city services don't work.
The first thing we should do is transport some seeds, soil, a lot of water, and a big tank of oxygen to Mars. You don't have to terraform the entire planet. Just send an unmanned machine that will build a garden about 5 feet by 5 feet square. Some grass, a few plants, that's all. Put them there, release a little bit of water on the plants each day, and a little bit of oxygen. See if they grow. If it works, send another one with some trees and stuff. If that works, send a big fleet containing an entire rainforest worth of stuff, and plant that, too. A little 5x5 patch of garden in the middle of the entire red planet won't harm any "evidence" that might be there.
This would make all the nations of the world cooperate with each other, kind of like the story about the people sitting across from each other at a 2 meter wide table, with 2 meter long silverware, where they had to cooperate to feed the person across from them, because otherwise they couldn't eat with that kind of long silverware. Yes. This would definitely work. I can totally see Cuba supplying power to Egypt, and Iran supplying power to Mexico, etc.
Needless to say, it would also cut down on all kinds of pollution, especially since it takes more energy to produce a solar cell than that cell will ever produce in its useful life. And because producing all that wire will take even more energy, not to mention tons of money. And because there is energy loss as it travels over long lengths of power lines. Yes. This is a great idea, and we don't need no stinkin' nucular power.
Imagine... instead of driving 45 minutes from Los Angeles to Burbank, you could drive to the airport (30 minutes), wait to check in (20 minutes), go through security (25 minutes), wait at the gate (40 minutes), get on the plane (20 minutes), wait on the runway (20 minutes), take off, fly, and land in Burbank (about 10 seconds), get off the plane (20 minutes), wait at the baggage claim (25 minutes), and then rent a car (30 minutes) and drive to your destination (25 minutes). Which would take about 4 hours, 15 minutes, and 10 seconds. Yes, I think this would be a very efficient way to travel, and it would definitely cut down on freeway traffic.
And of course, figuring out how to make the 747 withstand this kind of acceleration and speed without, uh, damaging the aircraft would, uh, create lots of jobs and make the economy strong again. Yeah. Good deal.
Hmmm... One million songs per day, times 365 days in a year, equals 200 to 300 songs per year. Must be "The New Math."
On the other hand, maybe huge corporations should start making money by innovation and marketing rather than lawsuits and lobbying for laws.
The G5 really is the fastest computer in the world. If you've used a 286 for the past ten years like I have, where GEM can barely run fast enough to appear responsive, then getting a G5 with dual processors and 10 gigs of RAM suddenly feels like going from an old bicycle to a Ferrari Testarossa. But that's just my take on it. Ooooooooh well.
I used to be the tyrant king of my own planet. It was a very advanced place, with all kinds of technologies that we don't even have here on Earth. Unfortunately, we got the Internet over there, too, and not six months later, the FUD spread and there was a revolt and I was kicked out of my palaces. Now, the place is in anarchy, and the anarchists had to dissolve their own government on a matter of principle. At least they are consistent in their beliefs. Ok, this post is garbage, and lucky for you, it's over now. Move along, folks, move along.
Fscking casinos.
"Our plan is to automatically generate FUD, to lower the TCO of our marketing department, while simultaneously increasing ROI," said Steve Ballmer in an interview. "Currently, we are spending just too many billions on marketing, and some of those funds could instead be diverted to SCO, er, I mean, to our legal defense department, thereby increasing shareholder returns."
The software is slated to appear in mid Q2 2004.
Six years later...
Microsoft stated that after years of delays, Microsoft FUD 2010 Constellation Edition will be released Real Soon Now (tm).
All properties are the property of their respective owners.
Of course, since I'm coming up with this idea, I don't have to work hard to make it happen. Someone else do it for me. I'm busy typing up a report in vi.
vi. Because friends don't let friends use emacs.
Of course, you didn't hear it from me. (I saw it all on a documentary on the Discovery Channel or something like that.)
Yes, it looks like the world is becoming a better place every day.
Yes, I know Buick stopped making the SR-71 a few months ago, but they should restart their high-quantity production.
In other news, the Action League department of the Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis (AL CAIDA) today announced new threats of technological terrorist attacks. Among other things, they threatened to use illegally acquired funds to purchase the Microsoft Windows source code, insert viruses directly into the operating system, and release them to the unsuspecting world. The most frightening of their threats was to implement a technology called Windows Scripting Host, which would execute malicious code upon reception in an email inbox. Such a technology would allow viruses to spread faster than with earlier diskette-based methods.
Oh, wait... That's already been done for them. Back to the black hat drawing board with these computer crime organizations.
And the Constitution should be amended to require EVERY individual to have a Microsoft Windows logo tattoed somewhere on their body, taking up at least 9 square inches of space, and that all newborns should have that logo tattoed on them upon birth. Yeah. That's a good idea.
On the other hand, the $2000 a year fee isn't going to do jack. Those who send spam do so because it's really darn profitable. To them, the $2000 a year is peanuts. To a service provider who can barely make ends meet and wants to expand its quality of service and options for customers, $2000 may be the difference between breaking even and going bankrupt. That's kind of like trying to protect individual inventors working in their basement by making the patent fees $200,000 or something. That'll only serve to accomplish the opposite of the intended result.
The bottom line is this: Make it difficult for spammers, not for legitimate users. A certain standard should be devised that includes technical as well as contractual devices to make it extremely difficult for any spammer to last any time at all on the .mail TLD. And mail received from non-.mail TLDs could automatically go into a "bulk mail" folder, or would not be downloaded from the server at all, except for the "From:" address and perhaps a digital signature, so the user (or his filters) can decide what to do with that information. And maybe that needs to happen with ALL mail, not just non-.mail TLD mail.
Microsoft has caused numerous quality products and the quality companies that produced them to disappear. They would either buy them out for peanuts or put them out of business with their illegal carnivorous business practices. Databases, word processors, development tools, web browsers, and media players are only a few of the examples that come to my mind. The existing products were far superior to those of Microsoft, in terms of reliability and efficiency, but Microsoft managed to hack together some crap to compete and used their marketing muscle to destroy the other guys. That's why people are used to the concepts of computers crashing, being bogged down by "crap" that somehow gets installed and runs in the background doing Lord knows what, etc. If there were no Microsoft, who knows where we'd be today, but I'm certain of one thing: At the very least, the software industry, consisting of many players of many different shapes and sizes, would produce rock-solid, efficient software, and by now, in 2004, nobody would accept the concept of a computer crashing and losing information.
Does this mean that Microsoft should not exist? No way! I really like one thing about them: Their marketing is awesome. I believe they should stop wasting their time and effort making software, and should turn into a computer systems marketing organization for software, hardware, and related products and services, all produced and served by others. They would earn some small percentage on the profits of sales for their marketing efforts. Increased competition would mean that lots of products and services would exist. Microsoft could be a directory connecting people, businesses, and governments to the proper places to obtain the results they need. Want standards? They could serve as the forum for designing and approving of standards, so that everything could eventually interoperate. No fixing dangling pointer bugs and the like. Only strategic thinking. And I think that if Microsoft were to do this, they would be ten times more influential, powerful, and profitable than by selling Windows XP at $200 a pop to people who hate Microsoft but feel compelled to buy their crap because there is no other choice, and who will move to something else as soon as it becomes available... But that's just the opinions of others that I've read elsewhere.
Trust3d Comput1ng iz th3 suxx0rz!!!!!!!111111111
You want trusted computing? Write everything in '1337-5p33k. Security through obscurity is the proven method to obtain 100% UNCRACKABLE security for today's enterprise applications.